Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000153
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Library of Congress, MBRS, Moving Image Section
Sponsor:
Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
As an active film magazine, CLOSE UP lasted only a short time, from 1927 to 1933. Yet the legacy of this English-language periodical, which was published in Switzerland, continues to matter. Edited by Bryher and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, CLOSE UP became THE magazine for energetic debates about the nature of cinema and manifestos imagining new forms of filmmaking and spectatorship. The magazine published articles by filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, and female literary modernists, such as H.D. and Gertrude Stein. As film scholar Anne Friedberg explains in the anthology CLOSE-UP, 1927-1933: CINEMA & MODERNISM, 'CLOSE UP became the model for a certain type of writing about film -- writing that was theoretically astute, politically incisive, critical of films that were simply 'entertainment.' For six and a half years, CLOSE UP maintained a forum for a broad variety of ideas about the cinema; it never advocated a single direction of development, but rather posed alternatives to existing modes of production, consumption, and film style.' Like Friedberg's own writing, CLOSE UP continues to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of film and media theory. -- Eric Hoyt, 2014
Date Added:
July 25, 2024
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP combined the technical values of Potemkin with the additional element of being a good show One result of this was that a week after The End of St, Petersburg opened, not only were all the motion picture critics writing enthusiastically about it, but their more valued colleagues, the dramatic critics, were talking excitedly of the film also. Accustomed to sneering the usual theater-goer's sneer at the contemptible object they call the movies, these somewhat condescending gentlemen remained to marvel at the dramatic possibilities of this humble medium. American defenders of the cinema are constantly met by this attitude of contempt that their cultured fellow-countrymen bear towards the cinema, and a picture like The End of St. Petersburg is, therefore, of infinite value in overthrowing this destructively cynical point of view. Add to that the importance of the work in restoring the morale of the unfortunate film advocates, beaten down after a succession of fourth-rate pictures, and you ma}' gain some faint idea of what the Russian production has already done for us here. As for the recent American-made photoplays, only two are worthy of consideration, and one of these was directed by a German. This is The Man Who Laughs, a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Hugo novel, directed with fine atmospheric effectiveness by Paul Leni and splendidly acted by Conrad Veidt and Olga Baclanova. The other is The Big Noise, a humble enough program picture which was given a certain, at least, local importance by the fact that it actually satirized American political conditions and even had the irreverance to poke fun at New York's mayor. 15